


Restless

by letitrainathousandflames



Series: Clone Trooper Files [8]
Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Nightmares, Other, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Survivor Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-14
Updated: 2018-12-14
Packaged: 2019-09-18 05:30:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16988931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/letitrainathousandflames/pseuds/letitrainathousandflames
Summary: It's always about Cody at some point.





	Restless

Rex grunted and rolled to his side, feeling the rocky surface under his armor. The fall had been painful; he had landed right on his right arm. He got up to his feet, turning on the flashlights on his helmet. He seemed to be in some kind of cave. He couldn’t remember how he’d got there. Odd. He pressed the comlink on his wrist.

“Fives? Fives, come over.” He paused, unable to remember who else was with him in this mission “General Skywalker? Cody? Anybody read me?”

Silence. Not even the sound of static.

Rex walked, watchful eyes gazing ahead and cocked blaster on his hand. He was so tense looking to the dark patch ahead where his flashlights couldn’t reach that he nearly tripped on something. Rex cursed to himself, looking down to what he expected to be another of the many rocks he’d seen ahead. He was wrong.

It was a clone. ARC Trooper Echo. He immediately recognized the blue shape of his hand printed on his chest piece despite the burnt, blackened armor and he knelt down by his body, shaking him.

“Echo! Echo! C’mon, trooper, talk to me!”

Echo was unresponsive. Rex pulled the helmet out of his head, seeing his pale face and his slack jaw. Rex had seen a dead brother enough times to know that Echo was gone. Rex closed his eyes in grieving for a moment before getting back on his feet and looking around.

“Fives? Fives?!”

And as he turned around he could see now. The many shapes that surrounded him were bodies. Countless fallen brothers, everywhere, all around him. Rex started walking, looking down at them, all th shinies, until he recognized the painting of the Republic's crest on a clone’s helmet.  He also saw the red blood that slathered his chest plate, which seemed like it had been cracked in by a heavy blow.

“No… No…” he ran to the clone, kneeling by him and pulling his helmet off “Jesse? Jesse, talk to me.”

Jesse was panting as he looked up to Rex, blood dripping down his chin, trailing out of his mouth.

“Dead…” he whispered “All of them… I tried to save them… But…” Jesse’s eyes were filled with pain and sorrow before they rolled back and fell shut

“No… No, Jesse, talk to me! Who did this?!”

And then, a voice behind him said:

“You did.”

Rex’s eyes went wide. He looked over his shoulder, letting go of Jesse. Behind him, a clone trooper stood, wearing an ARC’s kama and blue pauldrons, and his helmet had the painting of a Rishi Eel. Rex got to his feet, turning around to look at the trooper.

“Fives? Is that you?”

The trooper didn’t say a word, taking his helmet off instead to reveal Fives’ face, the goatee on his chin and the number on his forehead proving his identity. Rex let out a sight of relief. At least Fives was still alive.

“What happened?” Rex asked “What do you mean, ‘I did’?”

From the shadows behind Fives came Cody and Fox, standing then to either side of Fives, both wearing their armors but no helmets. There was something odd to their arm guards; both had tally marks like the ones Rex's had on his own, but they weren’t scratched over the painting – they were drawn – and Rex had a horrible feeling that the glistening red of them wasn’t paint.

“He means you are to blame for that.” Fox said, reaching for his blaster as he walked to Fives’ side and Fives turned to face him, their moves timed as if they had rehearsed it “And for this too.”

Rex looked from Cody to Fox, furrowing his brows. There was something unspeakably dark in the Coruscant Guard’s commander’s voice.

“What do you—“

Fox grabbed his blaster and shot Fives in the chest before Rex could finish his sentence, and Fives dropped to the ground like a deactivated droid, the sound of his armor clanking against the ground echoing louder than the shot that had killed him.

Rex screamed, grabbing his own gun and aiming it towards Fox. Before his sense of duty could speak, before any ounce of his moral code could weight in his decision, his finger had pulled the trigger, firing twice ins less than a second, stomach and head, with full intention to kill. Fox collapsed to the floor next to Fives and Cody began to walk towards Rex.

“This doesn’t change anything.” he said, his steps echoing in the cave

“Stay back!” Rex said between his teeth, pointing his blaster at Cody instead

But Cody kept walking towards him, his eyes narrowing at Rex.

“Doesn’t change the fact that you failed to save him, and the 501st, and the Republic.”

“I said _stay back!_ ” Rex screamed even louder now

“Doesn’t change the fact that you ran, deserted, betrayed your brothers in arms, no, your blood brothers. The closest thing to a family that you’ve ever had!”

Rex’s hands trembled on his blaster, but he didn’t take the shot. And now Cody pressed his chest plate against the blaster’s muzzle and snarled.

“You left me for dead!” he growled “Worse than dead, turned into no more than a clanker, my skills and my prowess enslaved for this filthy Empire that wiped out our beloved republic. My blasters shooting our former allies dead, orphaning children whose parents I once helped, spitting on our entire legacy.”

Rex didn’t lower his blaster, but he didn’t pull the trigger either. His eyes were wide as he shook his head in disbelief.

“You said it would be dishonorable to leave. Said you were a man of the Republic. I did all I could to convince you, but you believed Fives and Tup were insane!” he brandished his blaster, clanking it against Cody’s armor “You said you’d rather _die a soldier than live as a coward!_ I aimed my blaster at you and you said you still wouldn’t come! You ordered me to either shoot or get the kriff out of your sight!”

Rex’s sight grew blurry with tears, and he could feel his teeth grinding in his skull, his blaster dropping off his trembling fingers as he let out a sob. Cody pursed his lips to then sigh, grabbing his own blaster and pointing it to Rex’s head.

“You should’ve taken the shot, vod.” he said, looking sad and almost sympathetic

And he fired. 

* * *

 

Rex’s screams pierced Ezra’s ears as he lifted his helmet, interrupting the meditation he had been doing with Kanan. The Kanan and Ezra rushed to the break room. Zeb had just looked away from the holotable and chopper beeped a few times, to which Sabine agreed.

“Yes, that was Rex. Should check on him?”

Wolffe, however, played his round on the holotable.

“No.” he said very quietly “This is just… a chronic thing Rex has every now and then. It’ll stop soon.”

Ezra could hear him screaming still. Now he seemed to be apologizing over and over again. He’d never heard Rex’s voice sound so distressed. If he didn’t know the Clone Wars hero so well, he could say he was crying. Gregor sighed.

“Must be Cody again. It always ends up being about Cody at some point.”

Ezra looked at Gregor with concern in his eyes.

“Who’s Cody?”

Gregor scratched the back of his head, hesitating.

“Cody was… He is…”

“He’s a Stormtrooper.” Wolffe said, and his voice sounded like the topic was closed “That’s all there is to it.”

Wolffe’s voice was shaking while he barked at Zeb to play his turn, but nobody dared to point that out. Rex’s screams still echoed through the ship.


End file.
